Ross Tulloch

I have a similar property with walls that do attract damp and mould. With one tenant I had to entirely repaint the room twice in one year after cleaning it. She left and was fine with the tenant the next tenant I explained the issue he kept it well ventilated and there was zero problem and zero damp and Mould. In my experience this is partly education and partly Tenant And little more... Read More

I assume this is a wind up. Nothing of course just part of life... Read More

Amazing, they put in arbitrary minimum room sizes for HMOs, to force permanently empty rooms, then find they are short of accomodation... Read More

Will be interested in other people's comments. Are they planning to do it up themselves? Personally I would refurbish myself, but if not I would do the roof and perhaps the windows if they are rotten. The EPC is a legal requirement to E, as is the EICR, so these are essential and would have to be done.... Read More

Wise words from above, esp NewYorkie. The courts are simply not fit for purpose. If it were me I would make him an offer he cannot refuse. (Money to get out)... Read More

We sold 3 flats evicting 12 tenants because of arbitrary minimum room sizes imposed by the 2 London councils, and country wide rules, meaning one room going forward had to remain permanently empty. Luckily for new tenants in one, I saw later that the new owner had (illegally) still let it out and even divided the biggest room into 2... Illegal but good for tenants. Not something I would risk.... Read More

And in HMO properties, remove the silly minimum room sizes, made worse by councils sometimes buy increasing the minimum room size. 20% of our properties had rooms just below the 6.52m so we had to sell rather than have a permanently empty room, evicting all tenants... Read More

I have used section 21 a number of times, perhaps 14. All for bad behaviour, nonpayment of rent, drug use. Or because the government have stupidly decided that there should be minimum Hmo room sizes, made worse by some councils, and I’ve had to evict all the tenants because we have had to sell the property rather than leave a room permanently empty... Read More

I can’t remember the specific article I read, but clearly most replacements are replacing something to a higher spec. For instance, a new boiler replacing a 30 year old one. Anyway, all of these are revenue items I believe.a loft extension of course and items like that are capital expenditure... Read More

My understanding is very clear, almost any replacement of new for old is inevitably an improvement. For instance double glazing I’ve had several I’ve done at £25,000 a pop on council properties. I wouldn’t these days replace single glazed with single glazed so it is inevitably an improvement.

It will do very little to the capital value of the property, but my understanding is very clearly, but it goes against revenue.

Or storage heaters for a complete central heating system. Again always against revenue. Yes of course it’s an improvement but it doesn’t really change the capital value of the house very much.... Read More

Yes of course. All of these costs are set against rental income. So would be replacing all the windows for double glazed units for instance.... Read More

I have used section 21 six times because of drug use, or non payment of rent. Eight times because of the silly regulation encouraging more pointlessly empty rooms because of minimum HMO room sizes. Never no reason. Section 8 and particularly the court system pointless as the courts are not fit for purpose.... Read More

Fergus Wilson is correct, it is simple, they are related so one family. I have such in a property, so not an HMO... Read More

David, that’s what happened to me you are right. The existing tenant could stay there as long as they like because they don’t want blood on their hands but never replace them. That’s why I took them to tribunal and won so I got a license for a room that was designated to be a minimum of 10 m, but was actually 8.5... Read More

So what do you say to all my tenants who when asked about the tiny rooms are extremely grateful and delighted to rent them happy to rent them I never force anybody to rent them and they love the fact that they are where they want to live at the price they can afford to live at. I’d be very interested in what you would say to these people. Remember, these are existing rooms that were built decades ago but otherwise would have to remain empty forcing up the price of other rooms.... Read More

Profoundly disagree with the last two comments. The rooms we let to single people marginally under 6.5 m always let very quickly never any voids and were loved by the tenants because they were so cheap. With a great shortage of property, this must be the priority, making every possible room available. People will not rent what they do not want. With the change of rules, we have no choice, but to evict everybody and sell properties with one of the rooms, less than the size. Absolutely wrong with a shortage of property to make the problem worse by this rule. Remember, the rooms already exist.... Read More

My understanding is that councils can do what they want, however much it hits the tenants and landlords, but in my case taking them to tribunal, made them say yes to 8.51m instead of their 10m... Read More

Councils are clearly allowed to do as much damage as they like. I have am HMO room in Southwark. There the . Standard is 10 m minimum for a room where there is no living room. Mine was 8.51 m. So I took them to tribunal but we settled out of court and they gave in. Anybody wants to contact me, I’m very happy to speak to them directly because these things need challenging. What councils sadly do not realise is there isn’t a call for bigger rooms there is a call for more rooms but they seem to be going out of the way to make a fewer rooms. I have had to evict all my tenants in properties with rooms less than 6.51 m and sell up.

There will be many thousands of rooms in London smaller than this standard. The other side of course is for the rest of my properties all of this contributes to rents going up a lot.
What nobody seems to realise there’s any war on landlords, which this is is a war on Tenants as well. Deliberately reducing the amount of rooms available is exactly the opposite of what is needed.... Read More

I wonder if the London Mayor has considered his wish to bring in rent controls will have made many landlords increase rents more than they might have done while they can, because of this threat in the future, which itself would do more harm long term than good, as it has done elsewhere.... Read More

We could speak on WhatsApp. I’m abroad at the moment but on my number is (07768) 848602... Read More